


V.I.P

by onetiredboy



Series: Jay's Gender Fics (Read Disclaimer) [4]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Detailed mentions of sex, Fluff and Romance, Negotiation about what makes Juno & Nureyev comfortable, Other, gender talk, please read the notes for more details, soft making out, theyre so in love :( it hurts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 10:13:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21847996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onetiredboy/pseuds/onetiredboy
Summary: Juno sighs. He closes his eye, then opens it again, lifting his head to raise an eyebrow at him, “It’s rude to ask a lady about his perception of himself in any regard.”“Yes, but you’ll note I’ve done it anyway,” Peter smiles quickly and leans over to kiss Juno’s chest. “I understand it’s not the kind of thing you share with any person, not in this detail, but, well… here, quell my curiosity. Let me ask you some yes/no questions.”Juno sighs and closes his eye again, “Alright."
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Series: Jay's Gender Fics (Read Disclaimer) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1782826
Comments: 19
Kudos: 221





	V.I.P

**Author's Note:**

> **EDIT: I am discontinuing this series. Please follow the link to the series this is from and read the disclaimer there. Thank you!**
> 
> Okay, I want a kind of detailed note on this one.
> 
> In this fic, Nureyev asks Juno some questions about what makes him comfortable and what doesn't regarding his gender. I know this is a big topic in the Penumbra fandom because so many of us are trans and project onto Juno and/or Peter, and I wanted y'all to know that this confronts that. As a trans person myself, I want to be extra careful! I've tried to do it as vaguely as possible -- something great about Penumbra is the way there are no labels or titles; gender isn't /mentioned/. So I tried to do this without ruining any of that. I think couples in the Juniverse would still have conversations about comfort boundaries like this, just without all the bullshit terminology we use today.
> 
> I'd also like to make a large disclaimer. This fic was written because I coped with my dysphoria by writing a really soft, romantic, gender-affirming fic. In this fic, Nureyev is what we would call "a trans man" and Juno is what we might call "AMAB nonbinary". I'm mentioning that because Juno discusses some aspects of (what we would consider, but he probably wouldn't) "MtF transition", and I want to point that out for two reasons. 
> 
> 1) If this makes you dysphoric, I love you!! But look after yourself!! And read something else!!
> 
> 2) I'm not in ANY WAY trying to dictate something like Juno's canon gender identity or his relationship to it. You will probably see me (especially on my NSFW account) switch up my visions of both Juno and Nureyev. I do this to keep my fic as gender-expansive as the real podcast is, and try not to limit people's headcanons, many of which are healthy ways for people to project! So what I'm saying is please don't take this as me saying "this is what Juno is!!" -- it's just one idea of it that I wrote because it made me feel happy.
> 
> OK love you all.  
> Jay.
> 
> OH also, yeah! There's explicit mention of sex in this, and it gets pretty suggestive around 'you're so easy to unsettle' onwards, so if you'd rather skip that, do. :)

“Tell me about it.”

Juno snorts, leaning back on the bed. He brings one knee up, lets his hands rest on his stomach, “What is this, the 21st century? You want to know about my _gender_?”

Peter shrugs a shoulder, “Not in the same kind of archaic terms as they used, no,” he says. He’s lying on his side, fully naked, as Peter tends to be whenever he can. Juno at least has kept his underclothes on to avoid the chilly aircon, which happened to spark this particular conversation.

“I just suppose I want to know more about you. You’ll have to forgive me for doing so in such a scientific manner, Juno, but—”

“But creating little lists in your head and filing them away is the way you work,” Juno sighs. He closes his eye, then opens it again, lifting his head to raise an eyebrow at him, “It’s rude to ask a lady about his perception of himself in any regard.”

“Yes, but you’ll note I’ve done it anyway,” Peter smiles quickly and leans over to kiss Juno’s chest. “I understand it’s not the kind of thing you share with any person, not in this detail, but, well… here, quell my curiosity. Let me ask you some yes/no questions.”

Juno sighs and closes his eye again, “Alright.”

“I’m correct in my assessment that you are not made uncomfortable by gendered terms?”

“Yes.”

“But you prefer to use a variety of them.”

“Is that a question?”

Peter sighs, “Dear. Please don’t make this difficult.”

“I don’t know why you’re fussing,” Juno mumbles, “Yes.”

“I’m only worried that if our relationship is to progress to a point of true, emotional intimacy, as I’d quite like it to, I would be doing you wrong to have made any assumption about you that is incorrect. Has anything we’ve ever done during sex made you uncomfortable?”

“Wait. Is this some kind of really stiff foreplay?” Juno raises his head again, “Jesus Christ, Nureyev, you really need to work on your sweet talk.”

Nureyev rolls his eyes, “If you’d rather I stop asking you about it, you only have to ask.”

“No,” Juno says quickly, and then lies back down. He breathes in, holds it, and breathes deeply out, “I just… nobody’s ever taken the time to care before.”

“I hope I’m not crossing a line.”

“No. I just… I might not have answers to all of these, Nureyev. Hell, I-I couldn’t even tell you what I _am_.”

“If you’re suggesting I’m asking you to put a _label_ on it, I might have to leave the room. I told you I wouldn’t resort to that outdated rubbish. I only want to understand what makes you feel your best.”

Juno laughs softly. He drums his fingers against his stomach, “Okay.”

“Now, back to my previous question,” Peter says slowly, “I tend to use… gendered terms during sex.”

Juno feels a shit-eating grin pull across his face, “You mean when you call me a good girl for you, Nureyev?”

“Well—yes.”

“You’re not getting flustered, are you? C’mon, _Rex Glass,_ you’re the one who started it.”

Juno uses the old name when he’s teasing Nureyev for being flustered, a call-back to a character so outrageously un-Nureyev-like in his suavity that they both find him equal parts hilarious and embarrassing now. “It’s quite different saying it outside of… the moment.”

“I don’t have a problem with that,” Juno rolls onto his side to look at Nureyev, “In fact, if you’ll recall, I have kind of the opposite of a problem with that.”

“I’m only checking. I don’t want you to feel you can’t tell me if certain words don’t suit you at certain times.”

“I do have a problem with the word moist. Honestly, what the fuck? Why would you even make a word that is _so_ visceral. Oh, fuck,” he raises a hand to his forehead, “Listen to me. Visceral. Six months ago I didn’t even know that word. You’re ruining me, Nureyev. I’m going to start talking like you.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing, if I don’t mind sounding like an eighty-year-old elitist.”

Nureyev scoffs, “I’m wounded!”

“Why do you even say shit like that? ‘I’m wounded!’. You sound like you’re in a stream from thousands of years ago.”

“Don’t make me shut you up, Juno,” Peter leans over and kisses him before he can defend himself. Juno smiles into it, lifting his hand to kiss Peter back. They kiss long and slow, and when they part they do so softly, leaving millimetres between them.

Juno closes his eyes, “How do you make me feel like that? Every fucking time.”

“Oh, something in our biology, I assume. DNA and chemicals and such,” Nureyev dismisses, and Juno glares at him for a moment before leaning up to kiss him again.

They break. Nureyev smiles, “I can assure you the feeling is mutual. You’re deflecting from my questions.”

“You have more?” Juno groans, “Why do you even need to _know_ this stuff?”

“Last one, I promise. Though it doesn’t require a yes or no answer.”

Juno’s reply is a grunt.

“Do you have any medical plans for the future?” Nureyev asks, “I only ask so that if you do I can set aside a separate bank account, start filing away—”

“Aren’t you, like, six feet deep in debt?”

“Yes, well, some things are simply more important—”

“I don’t deserve you,” Juno sighs. He rolls Nureyev over to lean over him, kissing him until his lungs burn. Then he parts from him and rolls back over onto his back. “I don’t think so,” he says, “I’m alright at the moment. When I was, like, twenty, I considered, um, like hormone… stuff? For my chest, but…” Juno raises his hands to cup his breasts, “I’m already kind of halfway there, and all it cost me was 40 years of eating for comfort.”

Nureyev rolls his eyes and pushes his shoulder, and Juno laughs.

“Well, if you ever change your mind—”

“Nah, Nureyev. I’m happy. I promise.”

“Alright,” Nureyev says. His fingers trace the elevated tissue of Juno’s chest, then his thumb brushes over his nipple.

“You know I had those pierced?”

“No!”

“Mhm,” Juno closes his eyes, “I had a wild twenty-first birthday. I’ll have to tell you about it sometime.”

“Does this explain the shaky sewer rabbit tattoo on your lower back?”

“Okay. I had a wild twenty-first birthday and a wild fifteenth birthday.”

“Fifteen!”

Juno laughs, “You’re so easy to unsettle, Nureyev.”

“Oh, leave me alone,” Nureyev flicks Juno’s nipple and he gasps. Nureyev pauses, “Two last questions.”

“Fucking hell. Talk about leaving each other alone…”

“Does it make you uncomfortable when I do this?” Nureyev cuts him off, and rubs his finger against Juno’s nipple.

Juno laughs, “I, uh, think you know from previous experience the answer to that one.”

“Mm,” Nureyev hums distractedly, “And how about this?” he leans down to run his tongue along the other one.

“God fucking damnit,” Juno says, “I knew this was some kind of shitty, awful foreplay.”

Nureyev snorts, which is _very_ unlike him, but the picking up of undesirable habits is an unfortunate side-effect of a couple, if not entirely worth it. He closes his mouth on Juno’s nipple and Juno’s breath hitches slightly.

“How about you, Nureyev?” he asks.

Nureyev looks up at him, “Me?”

“Yeah, we haven’t talked about your whole…” he gestures vaguely, “Situation. What makes you comfortable, and stuff.”

“Oh,” Nureyev says, and thinks for a moment, “Well. I’m slightly more restrictive when it comes to gendered terms, slightly less comfortable with terms considered traditionally feminine, to use a term for it. But all in all, I’m not rather bothered.”

“How about in sex?” Juno asks, and raises his head to look down at Nureyev, “Sometimes we have P-I-V sex. If you’d prefer anal, for any reason, you just have to let me know.”

“Thank you,” Peter says, “I’m alright with vaginal penetration.”

“How about when I eat you out?” Juno asks, “Does that ever make you feel uncomfortable?”

Nureyev laughs softly, “I’d have to answer a solid ‘no’ to that.”

Juno raises his eyebrows, “Can I eat you out right now?”

And Nureyev laughs again, leaning up to kiss Juno. Then he rolls onto his back, “Oh, only if you insist,” he says, and Juno grins.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from 'imbi the girl''s song V.I.P. imbi is a nonbinary Australian artist and their song, V.I.P, gives me HUGE Juno vibes and always has.


End file.
